1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to an improved data processing system and in particular to a method and apparatus for processing data. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for selecting and rendering a section of a web page.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet is a world-wide, publicly accessible network of interconnected computers that transmit data using a standard called Internet Protocol (IP). This network of computers allows any computer connected to the network to communicate with any other computer connected to the network. The Internet has provided different types of communications, such as e-mail, on-line chatting, file transfer, and web pages.
With respect to transferring data over the Internet, the world-wide web environment is used. This environment also is referred to simply as “the web”. The web is a mechanism used to access information over the Internet. In the web environment, servers and clients exchange information using the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP). This protocol is a known protocol for handling the transfer of various data files, such as text files, graphic images, animation files, audio files, and video files.
One commonly used construct to format data for presentation to a user is provided through a standard page description language called hypertext mark-up language (HTML). Documents using this type of language also are referred to as web pages. These pages may be static or dynamically created and are connected to each other through links also referred to as hyperlinks. These hyperlinks allow for a connection to other web resources to find the universal resource identifier (URI), such as a universal resource locator (URL).
A browser is a program used to view and interact with information on the Internet. A browser is able to display web pages and traverse links to other web pages. Resources, such as web pages, are retrieved by browsing. The browser submits a request for the resource in which the request typically includes an identifier, such as a universal resource locator. In this manner, a browser may navigate or view information or data in any distributed database, even outside of the Internet.
When a user retrieves and views a web page, the user may see or identify a subset or section of the web page that is of interest. The user may wish to alert another user of the particular section in the web page. Currently, this user sends the universal resource locator for the web page to the recipient along with instructions on where the section of interest is located in the web page. The user may include a set of instructions, such as, “see the second paragraph from the top”, or “paragraph below the save money link”.
This currently used method has several drawbacks. These drawbacks include the time spent generating the descriptive text by the sender, the time spent interpreting the descriptive text and locating the section within the web page by the recipient, and potential for miscommunication resulting in the recipient being directed to the wrong section of the web page.
Another currently used solution involves the user copying and pasting the relevant portions of the web page into another document and transmitting that document to the recipient. This method also has drawbacks, including the fact that the recipient may wish to read the other parts of the document to gain additional insight or contents on the section of the web page. The sender may include a link to the web page to provide this ability. A further drawback is that, depending on the nature of the material, copyright restrictions may make such practices illegal.